To the many filled-in blanks that follow "Hell hath no fury like ... " we now might add "a faculty questioned" or "a faculty faced with exposure."

When professors at The University of New Mexico earlier this year protested the sky-high salaries of president David Schmidly and vice-president David Harris, the chairman of the school's board of regents began wondering aloud whether certain tenured members of the faculty were pulling their weight for what they were paid — and how accessible they are to the students.

Jamie Koch came to the board six years ago aiming to open the curtains on academia. He figured, properly enough, that transparency ought to apply to the thousand or so full-time faculty and the 800-odd adjunct instructors. Resistance arose among some of them.

As America's economic crisis spread to our state, it occurred to Koch that UNM should unite to get through tough times. He admits that executive salaries are out of whack — largely owing to prexies pressuring regents nationwide — and he expects to confront Dr. Schmidly with monetary reality at the president's upcoming performance review. But he also figures there ought to be a day's work for a day's pay. He has raised valid questions whether UNM students, for their ever-higher tuition, are being served as they should be.

At a meeting Wednesday night, about half the school's tenured faculty cast no-confidence votes on Koch, Harris and Schmidly. The action carries no official weight, but it's a strong message of fed-uppedness from a few hundred profs.

And while Schmidly's and Harris' stay at UNM is up to the regents, Koch's nomination to a second term is up to the state Senate. Some senators might use the confirmation process as a soapbox against the regent and the governor who appointed and reappointed him; Bill Richardson has been high-handed about the regent-selection process at our state's six and a half universities, so he's open to criticism from certain legislators.

Koch, however, has served as Democratic state chairman, helping a heck of a lot of senators get and stay elected. There are favors owing, and the Santa Fe businessman won't even have to mention them to his partisans. As for Republican senators, many of them have to be happy with Koch's call for accountability from profs the GOP suspects of pinko tendencies.

The votes should be there for Koch, and the governor stood up for the long-ago Lobo footballer, under whose leadership there's been a building boom and marked growth — especially in health sciences.

To the extent that Koch, Schmidly and Harris have run UNM on a corporate model, they should consider restoring academics as the paramount goal; paring back high-salaried executive staff would be a start.

But for all the professorial protests, those three are making UNM a better institution. For that reason, and for the sake of continuity, the state should keep them.



Tossing away TVs and other electronics has become one of the greater pains of the consumer age: As one modern miracle gives way to another, the old stuff tends to hang about the house until the space it displaces is needed for whatever else we buy.

For years, the discards created by obsolescence became the most garish — and, often, the most hazardous — occupants of city dumps, vacant lots and arroyos. Seems it was easier, and cheaper, to chuck the stuff rather than recycle it.

Now our nation and the rest of the world are awakening to the environmental and economic advantages of reusing the microcircuits, switches and other salvageable parts of electronic waste. That’s good news.

Even better news: Today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the city and an Albuquerque recycling company are cooperating in a low-cost, or downright free, drop-off event: $5 for old-style televisions; computers, monitors, laptops, LCD screens, stereos, cell phone and printers free.

It’ll take place at Solid Waste Division headquarters, 1142 Siler Road. A great chance to start spring cleaning!